A few months back I was at a meeting with urban designer Charles Landry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Landry), who suggested that Minneapolis should heat essentially all roads in the city, at least downtown. He mentioned a city in Sweden with a roughly similar climate that does so and claimed it has done wonders for the health and vibrancy of that city. Can’t recall the name of it, obviously.

What are the energy/environmental impacts and costs associated with heated streets?

Is it less than plowing, salting and such which would still be necessary at certain times even with heated streets?

Good question. The Interchange, the new transit hub next to Target Field, will use heat from HERC (the garbage burner) to heat its exterior surfaces when it opens in 2014. I imagine we’ll hear about its efficiency/environmental effects. At least, we should.

It seems like doing a retrofit on so many roads would be really expensive. I think that while it sounds really cool and would be nice I don’t see this becoming a reality. I’m also just a bit concerned about the cost to develop the infrastructure for this, the maintenance costs and the the environmental impact simply just so people don’t have to put tread on the snow.

Listen Buttercup, If you wanna save the environment you gotta buck up and quit being such a wussy. This Minnesota. It ain’t Florida. It’s gets real cold and it snows. Get used to it.